In Nazi Germany, lesbians who were sent to concentration camps were often categorized as "asocial", if they had not been otherwise targeted based on their ethnicity or political stances. [1] [2] Female homosexuality was criminalized in Austria, but not other parts of Nazi Germany. [3] [1] Because of the relative lack of interest of the Nazi state in female homosexuality compared to male homosexuality, there are fewer sources to document the situations of lesbians in Nazi Germany. [2]
In Berlin, lesbian bars and night clubs opened up in the aftermath of the First World War. Notable amongst them was the Mali und Igel, run by entrepreneur Elsa Conrad. Inside the bar was a club called Monbijou des Westens. The club was exclusive and catered for Berlin's lesbian intellectual elite; one famous guest was the actress Marlene Dietrich. Each year the club hosted balls with up to 600 women in attendance. [4] A campaign to close all homosexual bars, including lesbian ones, began in March 1933. [5] All lesbian periodicals (such as Die Freundin ) and organizations were also targeted for closure. [1] [6]
Historians investigating individual cases have come to varying conclusions. [2] Women in Nazi Germany accused of a lesbian relationship faced a different fate depending on their characteristics. Those who were Jewish, black, or politically opposed to the regime faced imprisonment in a concentration camp or death—sentences that in some cases were likely made more harsh by the victims' lesbian identity. [2] In contrast, historian Samuel Clowes Huneke concludes that lesbians accused of non-political crimes were not treated differently based on being lesbian, and simply being denounced as lesbian typically led to a police investigation but no punishment. [2] Therefore, he suggests "heterogenous persecution" as one way that lesbian experiences in Nazi Germany might be described. [2]
Historian Laurie Marhoefer argues that "Though not the subjects of an official state persecution, gender-nonconforming women, transvestites, and women who drew negative attention because of their lesbianism ran a clear, pronounced risk of provoking anxiety in neighbours, acquaintances, and state officials, and that anxiety could, ultimately, inspire the kind of state violence that [Ilse] Totzke suffered"—imprisonment in Ravensbrück concentration camp. [7]
In 2008, there was a controversy over the Memorial to Homosexuals Persecuted Under Nazism in Tiergarten, Berlin about the initial non-inclusion of lesbians in the memorial. Critics argued that, while lesbians did not face systematic persecution to the same extent as gay men, it was appropriate to memorialize those women who had been sent to concentration camps. A plan to replace the initial video with one that included women faced a backlash from opposing historians, activists, and memorial directors who argued that it would be "falsification" to include lesbians. [8] Despite efforts by some lesbian activists to commemorate lesbians imprisoned and murdered at Ravensbrück, as of 2021 [update] there has not been agreement on the establishment of a lesbian memorial at the camp. [9] Huneke argues that even though lesbians were not systematically persecuted, it may be appropriate to erect memorials because some lesbians in Nazi Germany faced violence and discrimination. [2]
Before 1933, homosexual acts were illegal in Germany under Paragraph 175 of the German Criminal Code. The law was not consistently enforced, however, and a thriving gay culture existed in major German cities. After the Nazi takeover in 1933, the first homosexual movement's infrastructure of clubs, organizations, and publications was shut down. After the Röhm purge in 1934, persecuting homosexuals became a priority of the Nazi police state. A 1935 revision of Paragraph 175 made it easier to bring criminal charges for homosexual acts, leading to a large increase in arrests and convictions. Persecution peaked in the years prior to World War II and was extended to areas annexed by Germany, including Austria, the Czech lands, and Alsace–Lorraine.
Claudia Schoppmann is a German historian and author.
The Schwules Museum in Berlin, Germany, is a museum and research centre with collections focusing on LGBTQ+ history and culture. It opened in 1985 and it was the first museum in the world dedicated to gay history.
Centrum Schwule Geschichte e. V., abbreviated CSG, is a German "LGBT" organization based in Cologne (Köln).
The memorial to gay and lesbian victims of National Socialism is a monument in Cologne, Germany, dedicated to the gay and lesbian victims of the Nazis.
Die Freundin was a popular Weimar-era German lesbian magazine published from 1924 to 1933. Founded in 1924, it was the world's first lesbian magazine, closely followed by Frauenliebe and Die BIF. The magazine was published from Berlin, the capital of Germany, by the Bund für Menschenrecht, run by gay activist and publisher Friedrich Radszuweit. The Bund was an organization for homosexuals which had a membership of 48,000 in the 1920s.
Selma "Selli" Engler was a leading activist of the lesbian movement in Berlin from about 1924 to 1931.
The Reich Central Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion was the government bureau central to the Nazi regime's fight against homosexuality and tasked with enforcing laws which criminalized abortion.
Berlin was the capital city of the German Empire from 1871 to 1945, its eastern part the de facto capital of East Germany from 1949 to 1990, and has been the capital of the unified Federal Republic of Germany since June, 1991. The city has an active LGBT community with a long history. Berlin has many LGBTIQ+ friendly districts, though the borough of Schöneberg is widely viewed both locally and by visitors as Berlin's gayborhood. Particularly the boroughs North-West near Nollendorfplatz identifies as Berlin's "Regenbogenkiez", with a certain concentration of gay bars near and along Motzstraße and Fuggerstraße. Many of the decisive events of what has become known as Germany's second LGBT movement take place in the West Berlin boroughs of Charlottenburg, Schöneberg, and Kreuzberg beginning in 1971 with the formation of the Homosexuelle Aktion Westberlin (HAW). Where as in East Berlin the district of Prenzlauer Berg became synonymous with the East Germany LGBT movement beginning in 1973 with the founding of the HIB. Schöneberg's gayborhood has a lot to offer for locals and tourists alike, and caters to, and is particularly popular with gay men. Berlin's large LGBT events such as the Lesbian and Gay City Festival, East Berlin Leather and Fetish Week, Folsom Europe, and CSD center around Schöneberg, with related events taking place city-wide during these events. Nevertheless, with roughly 180 years of LGBTIQ+ history, and a very large community made up of members with very varied biographies, it is hard to find a place in Berlin completely without LGBT culture past or present. Berlin's present-day neighborhoods with a certain concentration of LGBTIQ+ oriented culture vary somewhat in terms of history, demography, and where the emphasis in each neighborhoods' queer culture falls along the LGBTIQ+ spectrum. Over the course of its nearly two centuries of queer history (herstory), definitions not with standing, Berlin's LGBTIQ+ culture has never ceased to change, not only in appearance and self-understanding, but also in where the centers of queer culture were located in the city. What is true about Berlin's "LGBT culture in Berlin" at one point in time, in a given place and from a given perspective, is almost certainly different the next.
Ilse Kokula is a German sociologist, educator, author and lesbian activist in the field of lesbian life. She was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
There is a widespread and long-lasting myth alleging that homosexuals were numerous and prominent as a group in the Nazi Party or the identification of Nazism with homosexuality more generally. It has been promoted by various individuals and groups both before and after World War II, especially by left-wing Germans during the Nazi era and the Christian right in the United States more recently. Although some gay men joined the Nazi Party, there is no evidence that they were overrepresented. The Nazis harshly criticized homosexuality and severely persecuted gay men, going as far as murdering them en masse. Therefore, historians regard the myth as having no merit.
Die BIF – Blätter Idealer Frauenfreundschaften, subtitled Monatsschrift für weibliche Kultur, was a short-lived lesbian magazine of Weimar Germany, published from either 1925 or 1926 until 1927 in Berlin. Founded by lesbian activist Selli Engler, Die BIF was part of the first wave of lesbian publications in history and the world's first lesbian magazine to be published, edited and written solely by women.
Charlotte "Lotte" Hedwig Hahm was a prominent activist of the lesbian movement in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, National Socialist period, and after 1949, in the Federal Republic of Germany.
Margarete Rosenberg née Quednau (1910–1985) was a German tram conductor who was arrested in September 1940 in Berlin. She was accused of seriously compromising the Berlin Transport Authority (BVG) by failing to report for work after going out drinking with her female colleagues. Although she admitted to having sexual relationships, she was not accused of lesbianism. Together with her colleague Elli Smula (1914–1943) she was sent to the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp the following November where she was nevertheless listed and treated as a lesbian. She was among those who survived the ordeal, being rescued by the Americans in April 1945 after four and a half years of imprisonment.
Elli Smula (1914–1943) was a Berlin tram conductor who was arrested in September 1940. She was accused of seriously compromising the Berlin Transport Authority (BVG) by failing to report for work after going out drinking with female fellow workers. Like her colleague Margarete Rosenberg, she was detained by the Gestapo in the prison on Alexanderplatz. BVG had received complaints that some of their female employees were taking their colleagues home, encouraging them to consume alcoholic drinks and involving them in lesbian sexual relationships. The following November both women were transferred to the Ravensbrück Concentration Camp where Smula "suddenly died" on 8 July 1943.
Elsa Conrad, nicknamed "Igel" was a German businesswoman and night club entrepreneur. In the 1930s she was arrested and interned at Moringen concentration camp by the Nazi Party and was forced to emigrate, due to her sexuality, political views and Nazi racial laws.
Ursula Sillge is a German sociologist and LGBT activist. She organized the first national lesbian gathering in East Germany, and between 1970 and 1990 was one of the main lesbian activists in the country, pressing authorities to recognize the rights and allow visibility of the LGBT community. In 1986, she founded the Sunday Club in Berlin. It was the only secular association representing homosexuals in the 1980s, though it was not officially recognized. The organization became the first legal association to represent the LGBT community in East Germany when it was allowed to register in 1990. Sillge resigned as director of the Sunday Club in 1991 to found the LGBT archive known as the Lila Women's Archives. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, she was able to earn her doctorate. In addition to running the archives, she has published several works about homosexuality and women behind the Iron Curtain.
In Nazi Germany, transgender people had a variety of experiences depending on whether they were considered "Aryan" or capable of useful work. According to the Museum of Jewish Heritage, the Nazi German government "brutally targeted the trans community, deporting many trans people to concentration camps and wiping out vibrant community structures."
Paragraph 183 is a public indecency law of the German Criminal Code, which prohibits "sexual self-determination" and public exhibitionism. From its adoption in 1871, at an increasing rate during the rise of the Nazis, and until as late as the mid-20th century, the law was used to enforce penalties for cross-dressing and homosexual acts. As of 2021, the law's scope is limited to indecent exposure.
